Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-18
THE BABY.
A Series of Letters from Marion Har-
land to Those Who Are the Moth.
ers of Immortal Beings.
"Why Women Should Not be Mothers
"rhe Life of the Popular Society Girl"
"our Unique of Motherhood

" ~
their views On this subject. $50 many
are namely non Committal, so many il
logical and violent, that my assistant IN
the correspondence proposes to compile
the epistles in volume entitled, Reasons
why Women Should Not Vote,'" she
saws, "when the replies are all in" The
clause suggested to me the caption have
set at the head of this paper.
Our boys are in another score OF years
to make the laws, heal the souls and
bodies, formulate the science and control
the commerce of their generation.
Fathers who, recognizing this great
truth, do not prepare their sons to do
their part toward accomplishing this
work, are despised, and Justly, by the
community in which they live. Our
girls are in another score of years to
make the homes which are 10 model and
control the men who are to make laws,
heal souls and bodies. formulate science
and control the commerce of their gener-
alton. In these homes are to be born
and brou ght up by the mothers, our grand
sons, who are to make laws, ETC., etc. in
their generation. TIE house that-Jack-
bull row of bricks runs on in immutable
lines into the vista of the eternities.
Yet-and herein is mystery-the moth
er who does not, with definite purpose, in
the fear of God and love of her kind, pre-
mare her daughter to fulfill this mission,
loses neither caste nOr favor among her
cougeners. our Protestant sympathies
ere shed wastefully upon the novice,
who. by the rules of certain cOnventual
orders must mingle in the gayest society
TO which she has access, that she may
test the strength of her resolution by
Temptation. The lives of our girls, as we
help make them, are, for the interim that
senarates the schoOl-rOOm from the bri-
dal altar, sucn novitiate, rather than an
apprenticeship for the noblest work ever
entrusted to human hands. The black
veil typifes the marriage ring. In her
farewell to the merry go-round of parties,
balls and froliCs generally, our daughter
blows the foam from thei cup; sparkles,
subsidies into stateliness; the wine OF eX-
istepce and herself "settle down"
Said one affectiOnate, sensib mother
when reminded that practical knowledge
of the duties of mistress, wife and mother
would make the prospective matrOn's
task easier in days to come: "But what
time have girls who go into society, for
regular home occupations? What with q
lunch and high tea and an evening party
six DAYS out of seven, and q german
every week. to say nothing of theater,
onera and dinners, they are driven to the
full measure of their strength. | see the
force of what you say, but where is the
leisure to come from?'
do not essay to answer this query.
The life of the popular "society girl is
as wearing to the nervous forces as that
of the ''variety" actress, and she "goes
off" under the strain quite as fast as does
the painted dancer and vocalist. The
youth who is her favorite partner abates
not whit of his daily labor on the NOR
row, most of which she spends in bed
that she may freshen up by evening
What is her business is his recreation.
By the time they Join hands for the min
uet of working-day living he has come to
consider this style of re-creatlng his splr-
its ga bore, you know" and is glad to
try domesticity as change. In entering
upon their home life she begins TO work,
he to rest. 1t ought not, ne thinks, &c
tax the strength of q tolerably healthy
woman to keep well appointed fat or
cottage in order and direct the operations
of one or two servants.
When the sweet voice takes why
ring, and the plat between the browS
becomes a crease, when her vivacious
chit-chat degenerates into monologue
uuoa housewifely woes, her spouse is
naturally perpleXed perhaps impatient
peradventure even slightly cOntemptuous
He had thought that she had more "grit, D
and some perception of the serious side
of life How, in the name OF preceden'
and the cOmmonest kind of common
sense can the poor young wife be other
wise than disheartened and chroniC&lly
fatlgued? A new set of mental and ply
steal muscles are brought suddenly into
sctive use The breaking into harness
that seemed in anticipation a novel anc
enticing sport turns out to be compulsory
exercise. How she will support the eX'
perience depends upon her moral and
bodily staying power.
Before the tender feet OF the over
wrought creature are used to the shards
and pitfalls of her road, child is laid il
her arms. As girl she thought and
talked freely of probable wife-hood, even
pictured to herself the pretty pomp OF
controlling and adjoining home of bel
own. Thoughts of, and preparation for
! the ore great untransferable mission O.
woman, as hers, would have been IN
maidenle. In her mental schedule, be /
| long or brief, there is no note OF thu
necessity or even eXpediency of fitting
herself in health, in knowledge, in dis
cipline of spirit and temper, for the
maternal office. She knows that children
| are sent to most married people, and tina
but for the supply of new material M
! human race would become extinct. She
has a nebulous idea, too, that the train
mo Of infants is generally the mother
concero. But there will be time enough
to think of such things should Provi
dence add this burden to the rest.
| So tire month"; wheeled by and TIT
Young immortal who through her agenc.
is to become the best Or sne worst maj
of his age lies in her awkWarU. embrace
his feeble life hanging upon her ignora- ce
Why the All-wise Creator should send bs
bies to those who know as much about
| taking care of them as q peasant Lap
| lander of the procession Of the equinOxes
| is problem reserved for the clarified in
tellects of the hereafter. Now it is dis
sected theorem with half the pieces mis-
sing.
81 am the mother of an immortal be-
ing. God be merciful to me sinner!'
is the entry in Margaret Fuller Ossoll's
diary when her boy was born. 1t was the
CRY of the human and the maternal in the
soul of her who frankly confessed, 80
now know all the people worth knowing
in America, and find no intellect com
parable with my own"
Our small-minded and humber,
mother may take up the lament, accord
ing to her individual Interpretation of it:
meaning. Without trenching upon de